Dear Device APIs WG,
I am writing on behalf of the Internationalization Core WG. In our 25 August call [1] we discussed an email [2] mentioning some internationalization issues in your new working draft [3].
I took an action item to ask if it would be appropriate for us to review the Contacts API draft now or if we should wait for a later date. Our concerns, obviously, focus on the problems that any address book faces when dealing with international data (names, postal addresses, etc.). We know that you have to deal with existing implementations and standards such as RFC2426 (vCard). It may be that the best way to address issues in this area would be via best practices. But there may also be opportunity that Contact APIs offer the opportunity to create better-internationalized implementations as well.
Please let us know how best to proceed.
Regards (for I18N),
Addison
[1] http://www.w3.org/2010/08/25-core-minutes.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-i18n-core/2010Aug/0007.html [MO]
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/contacts-api/#attributes-4
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect (Lab126)
Chair (W3C I18N, IETF IRI WGs)
Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.